SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/24/2022 8:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Purpose: To Reveal and to
Conceal”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 13:10-17
Message of the verses: ““10 And the
disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in
parables?" 11 And He answered and said to them, "To you it has been granted to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. 12 “For
whoever has, to him shall more be given, and he shall have an abundance;
but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. 13
“Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see,
and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 “And in their
case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘You will keep on hearing, but
will not understand; and you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; 15 for
the heart of this people has become dull, and with their ears they scarcely
hear, and they have closed their eyes unless they \should see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I
should heal them.’ 16 “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and
your ears, because they hear. 17 "For truly I say to you, that many
prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it;
and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”
I want to begin this section with a quote from John
MacArthur’s commentary: “When the Son of
God became incarnate, He was God’s unique Mediator, the divine/human instrument
of rule, who in His own right deserved to establish and reign over God’s
earthly kingdom. When the Son was
rejected, God continued to rule through those who belonged to Christ, those who
were now empowered within by His own indwelling Holy Spirit. From Pentecost through the present day and
until Christ returns, Christians are God’s mediatorial rulers on earth.” I have mentioned that I am teaching through
the book of Hebrews in our Sunday school class and one of the things that God
is showing me as I study this great epistle is that it is a book of transition,
transition from Judaism to the Kingdom of God in the church age. I love it when the different books of the
Bible that I am studying dovetail together and this 13th chapter of
Matthew dovetails perfectly with the transition that we see in the book of
Hebrews and this quotation from MacArthur’s commentary fits very nicely with
what is going on in the book of Hebrews.
We have mentioned that Matthew chapter thirteen is a transition in the
ministry of our Lord as the Jews had stated that the miracles that Jesus was
doing were done in the power of Satan, which was the unpardonable sin, and now
as we move from the 12th to the 13th chapter of Matthew
we see that Jesus is teaching in parables, parables that shows what will be
going on in the church age.
Now as we move onto looking at the tribulation period,
that seven year period that will usher in the return of Jesus Christ to planet
earth we see that God will raise up 144,000 faithful Jewish evangelists from
the twelve tribes of Israel, and an innumerable host of Gentiles, “a great
multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples
and tongues,” will be converted and stand “before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed in white robes” (Rev. 7:4, 9).
God will also use two witnesses to get out the word of salvation during
part of the seven year tribulation.
MacArthur continues:
“Throughout its history the mediatorial kingdom has attracted both true
and false citizens; and it will remain so until its end. Failure to understand that truth has caused
untold confusion in interpreting many Bible passages. Among other things, it has caused many
sincere Christians to believe that salvation can be lost.”
I suppose that this last sentence from the above
quotation comes from a couple of sources, and one of them would come from Satan,
and the other from our old nature which tells us that we are truly not good
enough to become and to stay believers in Jesus Christ. However it was God who
chose those who will become His children before the world began, it was Christ
who paid for our sins, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives us an effectual call
that we cannot say no to, therefore as the Word of God says salvation is a gift
given through the triune God as all the Members of the trinity had a part in
our salvation.
We have mentioned a few times in this section about the
kingdom of God and have stated that during the Mediatorial kingdom that there
will be both believers and unbelievers in it.
Now a careful study of Scripture will show us that although the true
subjects of God’s kingdom are only those who belong to Him by saving
faith. Now these true citizens of the
kingdom can be unfailingly in distinguishing from false ones only by God
Himself. God’s chosen people, Israel,
was always composed of both those who were true believers and those who were
not. Let us look at what Jesus said in
Matthew 8:12 “but the sons of the kingdom will be
cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.’” As we look at this
verse we can easily determine that those “sons of the kingdom” were not true
subjects of the King. In Matthew 13:38
we a part of the parable of the wheat and the tares and we see in that parable
that they both grow up together, one true wheat and one tares, and in the end
the tares will be burnt up, so again we see evidence of in the kingdom there
will be both believers and non believers.
MacArthur writes “In the figure of the vine and branches, Jesus
illustrates the truth that many branches that seem to belong to the vine really
do not. Jesus even spoke of the spurious
branches as being ‘in Me,’ but those branches will be pruned away, dry up, and
be thrown into the fire to be burned (John 15:2, 6). The people represented by those unfruitful
branches were closely, but superficially, indentified with Christ. Condemned ‘sons of the kingdom’ are never part
of God’s spiritual kingdom, and unproductive ‘branches’ are ever a part of
Christ. They only appear to be from man’s
imperfect view.”
I
will conclude this SD with what Paul wrote in Romans 9:6-7 as we will see here
that the apostle will declare earlier in his letter to the Romans 2:29 “he is a
Jew who is one inwardly. “6 But it is
not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel,
7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In
Isaac your seed shall be called’” (Rom. 9:6-7 NKJV).
I see that we are getting into some “heavy” things
from the Word of God, but we will rely on the Spirit of God to get us through
these heavy things.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As a believer in Jesus Christ for a little
over 48 years I realize that in an of myself that I cannot always tell if a
person is a believer or not, and sometimes I don’t think that a person can know
for sure, and so it is good from time to time to look at 2 Corinthians 13:5 “Test
yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you
not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you — unless
indeed you fail the test?” It is also
good to look at the next verse that Paul wrote” “But I trust that you will
realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to continue to understand these deep
things from the Word of God as the Holy Spirit is my teacher.
3/24/2022 9:08 AM
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